


She Followed Her Feet And I Followed Mine

by orphan_account



Category: Discworld - Pratchett, Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Community: no_true_pair, Crossover, F/F, Female Characters, Female Protagonist, Heteronormative Paradigm, Hobbits, Medical, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-23
Updated: 2008-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:26:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally written for No True Pair and the prompt Annagramma/Rosie, first time. <br/>Since for this challenge I had these kinds of crossovers where the characters come from completely different worlds, I decided to have two kinds of crossovers: 1. genuine crossovers, where one character is plopped into the world of the other, 2. the kind where one character, more or less the same, has always lived in the other character's world. This is of the second type.<br/>I should also note that the story assumes that hobbits come of sexual maturity much as we do, but that their "tweenage" years last longer.</p>
    </blockquote>





	She Followed Her Feet And I Followed Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for No True Pair and the prompt Annagramma/Rosie, first time.   
> Since for this challenge I had these kinds of crossovers where the characters come from completely different worlds, I decided to have two kinds of crossovers: 1. genuine crossovers, where one character is plopped into the world of the other, 2. the kind where one character, more or less the same, has always lived in the other character's world. This is of the second type.  
> I should also note that the story assumes that hobbits come of sexual maturity much as we do, but that their "tweenage" years last longer.

Ma Hawkin was a healer and a storyteller, the sort that gentlehobbits pooh-poohed as peddlers of tall tales and hack medicine, but that the likes of Cottons and Gamgees went to when a wife could no longer bear children for fear of her life, or a fever wouldn't break, or a song was needed the best to bring good luck to new crop. 'Mama's a Took, really,' said her daughter Annagramma. 'High-born, too. She just can't tell anyone because her political enemies in the Great Smials would hunt her down and silence her.' Annagramma was always full of stories like that. Rosie used to trail after her as a girl, not really believing a word she said, but liking the stories nonetheless.

Annagramma's greatest dream was to go to the Smials ('I would even risk my mother's enemies' wrath') or to Buckland to study with the town healers, who mixed drinks and sometimes went as far as Bree or beyond to learn new lore. 'It's not just guesswork and tradition these days,' she would gush. 'A true healer knows it is an art, and could make all new medicines, and test them to make sure they work before giving it to a hobbit. A real educated healer - that sort of a person would have the ear of the Thain himself!' She'd dangle her feet in the river and lift her eyes to the bright skies as if she could find her future written up there.

'You shouldn't settle for staying at home and popping out brats,' Annagramma said to Rosie when they were both sixteen and the day Annagramma should have to leave, if she ever did, was drawing closer. 'You should come too and be a great healer, like me.'

'You should stay here and be a great mother, like I will be,' replied Rosie tartly. Annagramma gasped in her theatrical manner, and her expression hardened. They didn't talk much in the next few weeks.

The first day of September, when Rosie was three weeks nineteen, Annagramma came by the Cotton farm all dressed up in a travelling cloak and with her bag slung over her shoulder. Her brother hung by the gate, patting a restless pony on the neck. Rosie put down her sewing and ran down to meet her. They stood silently grasping hands, and then embraced. 'I still wish you'd come,' said Annagramma, looking a little lost for the first time Rosie could ever remember.

'I wish you could stay,' said Rosie simply.

'We'll visit.' But they never did.

After the Battle of Bywater, Rosie worked with the wounded, same as everyone else who could be spared or wasn't on the slab himself. She went from hobbit to hobbit with clean bandages and cool water, helped them to the outhouse and back, kept their mattresses and blankets nice and clean. On the third day a healer rode to Hobbiton all the way from Buckland, her backbag full of wonderful medicines and her head full of badly needed advice. She was tall and fair and a grown hobbit now, but her proud carriage was, if anything, emphasized both by her arrogant air and by the fine gown she now wore, to tread the muddy fields of Bywater. Rosie didn't see her ride in, because she was in the town house splintering a broken arm, but that same night she splintered another with Annagramma holding the wounded hobbit's arm in place after expertly popping the bone.

There was much to wonder at about the changes each had undergone. Annagramma asked to sleep at the Cotton farm, even after being offered a bed at the finest standing house in Hobbiton. She snuggled in with Rosie like they had when they were girls, and told her about the wonders of the big world, and Rosie didn't have the heart to tell her how much farther her Sam had gone. Instead, she told her of the hardships as they had visited Hobbiton, as they had the rest of the Shire, and of the darkness of Mr Sackville-Baggins.

'I'm sorry,' said Annagramma at last, the unfamiliar words forced strangled out of her throat. 'I've helped birth babies, now. I used to think it was beneath me. You'd seen it before' - Rosie had helped birth animals and had been set to fetch towels for hobbit mothers in their childbeds more than once as a girl - 'and you still want to be a mother. You stayed here on this farm when the men came, and you let your lover go into unknown danger and you waited. I couldn't have done that, Rosie.'

Rosie petted Annagramma's hair, feeling pride swell in her heart, but it was soon eclipsed by love. She loved the farm, her silly, bickering family, and her Sam, and her life, now that it was back the way it was meant to be. She'd barely had a choice about staying, or doing the things she did. No-one forced her but love. She told that to Annagramma and kissed her hair, her cheeks, and her mouth the way they had as girls. Annagramma's body moved against her, tight, then bending in a familiar inviting undulation.

They pulled apart; 'We shouldn't,' they said in unison, and laughed awkwardly. There was too much between them now - career, other lovers, work, distance. They moved apart, denying themselves for the first time, and lay companiably side by side, joined in their sweet sadness at the breaking of old days.


End file.
